Daddy's Little Girl - Revised 2018
by SMK Twisted Sister
Summary: A day that turned horribly wrong in the lives of our favorite spies. Originally published a VERY long time ago, this is still one of my favorites but I decided to retool it a little. An author is never satisfied and truly believes that everything typed down probably sucks.
1. Introduction

**2018 Revised – Daddy's Little Girl**

 **Author's Note: March 2nd, 2018**

If there is one universal truth that I have learned as a writer, it is this:

No matter how great you think it was when you first posted it, give it a few (cough, cough) years and come back to it.

Give it another read.

Guaranteed outcome?

You'll think it sucks. You'll wonder what the hell you were drinking when you made the decision to post it.

So, in trying to retrain my brain and my muse, I decided that I would give some, maybe all, of my fiction some retooling.

If you haven't read the original version, you can but I'd warn against it. If you have read it, please give the new version a read through.

I welcome your input and reviews.

PS – I will leave in the original author's note (with a few modifications), just for giggles.

Happy Reading!

 _Twisted Sister_

 **Original Author's Note: March 11** **th** **, 2007**

Well, the muses have been screaming at me since Friday morning to write this one and so am I. Or so I did, write it that is.

And, since Jan said to, I did.

Now, since I'm writing it and know what is going to take place, I'm not too emotional about it. But, for those of you just now reading it, I might suggest a tissue alert, just in case you're one of the emotional sappy types.

Please don't take offense at that, I just know how I am and, if I were reading this story, I would welcome that alert.

I have no idea why my muses are taking the path that they are, but hey, I'm just thankful that they've come to play again.

Okay, here's the standard stuff:

Legalese – you all can recite it, I'm not going to type it.

Setting: Sometime shortly after the series ended.

Warning: Tissue Alert! No-naked-Lee contained within. Sorry.

Reviews are welcome but be kind. I've been away from this whipping stuff for a very long time.


	2. Chapter 1

**2018 Revised – Daddy's Little Girl**

 _ **Chapter One**_

Even as the sun continued its nocturnal dance of descent to allow the moon its moment on the evening stage, vibrant blazes of color still managed to dance across the sky. A light but still warm breeze whispered across the beach, mingling with the fresh scents of the ocean.

It was at the juncture, where the blue waters lapped across the white sand that she stood.

A little girl, dressed in cutoff denim shorts and a red, summer tank top that was adorned with an American flag emblem. Long brown ponytails, one on each side of her precocious face, were still somewhat secured with navy blue ribbons.

The man stood, silently observing her with fatherly pride as he watched her kick the sand with her small feet. It was a moment of adorable and childish innocence, enhanced even more so as she giggled with delight.

Oh, how he wished there could be more moments like this.

Now was not the time though.

Determinedly, he moved forward along the beach to make his way towards her.

She spied him approaching and her face lit up.

"Daddy!"

Her girlish squeal reached his ears even as he watched her begin to run along the sand towards him.

He couldn't help but scoop her up into his arms and swing her around. It only served to make her laugh even more but the sound was like sweet music to his ears and he treasured it.

"My little girl," he said even as he settled her back down onto the beach and brushed a loving, gentle kiss on her forehead.

"Where's Mommy," she asked.

He chuckled.

"Always the questioner."

Knowing she demanded his answer, he took her much smaller hand in his.

"She's waiting baby, she's waiting."

* Next installment(s) should be up either very late Friday evening or very early Saturday morning.


	3. Chapter 2

**2018 Revised – Daddy's Little Girl**

 **Author's Note: March 2nd, 2018**

 _Well, I don't know why I expected to be further ahead than what I currently am. Hubby had a 4 day weekend, his 1_ _st_ _vacation days used since starting new job. We did a lot of house stuff and since I was off on Monday, I had to catch up with work. Then, little niece was in the hospital, so here I am now – behind._

 _Anyhow, hope you enjoy revised Chapter Two. Happy Reading!  
_

 _ **Chapter TWO**_

William Melrose had taken a seat on an uncomfortable bench, discreetly away from the place he wished the least to be. Sitting so far removed was also a desperate need of his own. Keeping his distance, lest his own emotions be revealed, was for the best.

In his hands, he still held the magazine he had been reading. It was still at the same page as when he had first picked it up. At best, a half-hearted attempt to put his mind elsewhere for a short time. He couldn't even tell you what type of magazine it was, only that it had been on top of the little pile of other reading materials beside a small lamp on the end table alongside the bench.

He simply couldn't afford to crack now, already knowing that in the coming days his strength would be needed. Be damned what the rulebook spouted! He, personally, thought it was mostly a load of gibberish.

His personal feelings needed to be buried underground right now, buried so deeply, so secure that not even the slightest crack in his armor would show. He needed to be the rock that he knew his family would require in the coming days.

Later, he thought.

Later.

How ironic that they always used that word and yet, in their business, there was never an absolute that later would ever arrive.

They should know better. They did know better and yet theirs was not a job for a pessimist.

The optimist within always continued towards later. Always believing that if today didn't give them the resolution that they wanted, tomorrow would.

Amongst them, they all knew. Silently they all admitted that they ran on borrowed time. Like the slow, inevitable tick-tock on a timer, the minutes and seconds steadily counted off until there simply were none left to tick. There would be no more minutes, no more reprieves and there would not be a later for every bit would have elapsed.

The hushed sounds of movement at the end of the hall caught his attention and he watched with deep sorrow as the young man guided the older woman out of a room and around the corner.

Billy knew that tonight, like every night for the past week and a half, they would make their way to the hospital cafeteria and attempt to eat before the dining hall closed its doors for the evening. Despite their grief and pain and feelings of helplessness, they would go through the motions of normalcy, of being human despite all the while knowing it wouldn't make any difference to the final outcome.

After they had been out of sight for a few moments, Melrose rose from the uncomfortable bench. He gently placed the unread magazine where he had found it, on top of the others beside the little light.

Then, he quietly made his way down the hall, to the room. In some strange way, he was grateful for the additional few minutes that he would, sadly, spend within.


	4. Chapter 3

**2018 Revised – Daddy's Little Girl**

 **Author's Note: March 14** **th** **, 2018**

 _I'm not sure about you, but I am finding that I am enjoying this journey back into the land of SMK. While I don't have any solid ideas for anything new, I can definitely feel the creativity and the joy of whipping coming back and that, dear reader, is quite refreshing and exciting._

 _I guess this idea of going back and just getting into the edit/revise strategy to jump kick things wasn't such a bad idea after all._

 _I hope you're enjoying the revised version so far, I know I am. But then, it is always easy to be whisked back to the land of Scarecrow, isn't it?_

 _Enjoy!_

 _ **Chapter Three**_

He stood and watched his daughter as she smelled the flowers, obviously enjoying their sweet floral fragrance. In this aspect, she was so like her mother. Able to stand back and enjoy the little things in life, the quiet joys and precious moments that he had left slip away far too easily.

If only he could do it all over again.

Despite what he knew, a heavy sigh escaped him. She'd always been Daddy's little girl and, even now, she could break his heart.

It was then that she stood up and looked at him, meeting his gaze with deep dark eyes.

"I thought you said Mommy was waiting," she reminded him.

"She is my precious, she is. So are a lot of other people."

Childish curiosity caught her and she quickly quizzed him.

"Are we going to a party?"

He chuckled as he recalled how she'd always possessed a need to know, even as an infant.

Once again, he clasped her tiny hand in his. There was nothing more that he wanted except to keep his little girl safe from the big bad world. He reckoned that was all that any father wanted, when it was all said and done. Just to know that his little angel was safe and happy, that all of the wolves had not called upon her door and gained access to break her heart and sadden her soul.

"Not exactly a party, baby. But, there are lot of people waiting for you and we must keep going, if we're to be there."

He would have started walking onwards except that she tugged her hand from his. He watched with love as she moved away, only to kneel down and pluck a pretty flower.

Coming back to stand in front of him and on her tiptoes, she handed the flower to him.

"For you, because you're the bestest Daddy in the whole wide world," she explained to him brightly.

He gave her his best smile even while his head reminded him that if had indeed been that, the bestest Daddy, then he would have never left her or her mother in the first place.

Shrugging, he sighed again.

It hadn't been his decision in the first place.


	5. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four**_

Decisions.

Billy Melrose frowned.

Now that was a word, decisions.

They'd all made them, sometimes hastily, sometimes erroneously.

Glancing around, he took in all the beeping monitors and equipment that surrounded the bed. The noises signaled machinery doing its job, all because of a decision.

That very same machinery would cease doing the job tomorrow, brought to a stop because of a painful and lengthy decision made by tormented loved ones.

It was decision that he wasn't sure that he could make, one that he was thankful he hadn't had to make.

Another glance around and he took in the pictures that now resided on the metallic nightstand beside the bed. Smiling faces, clasped hands and the look of love that so rarely one discovers in this life. And yes, that too had begun because of a split-second decision.

Every day he made decisions. Who to give an assignment to, who not to put in the field on any given day. He knew he couldn't take it personally because nobody, not a single soul on this planet, could ever predict how each day would turn out. Nobody could foresee how events would play out or tell him which members of his family would return to the office by sunset and who would not.

He'd lost agents before, he'd witnessed death in the field and had seen many a good man or woman go down. Lives snuffed out too quickly, sometimes without any real meaning and always, always bitterly hard to accept.

This time seemed much harder. Perhaps because this particular group had gotten to him like no previous or, perhaps, he had simply mellowed with age.

He'd always known when one of his agents had been in trouble, had always prayed that they would find safety during the battles.

Honestly, he was growing weary of sending them into battle and tired of predicting who would return home. He was angry in knowing that, even after he too left the battlefield, next of kin would continue to be notified when things went horribly wrong. That was the way of humanity. Past, present and future, continuing on in that fashion unless some sort of divine intervention interceded and changed the course although that intervention seemed unlikely in his own lifetime.

Billy looked down at the occupant lying on the bed, a small figure shrouded with tubes and contraptions that were accomplishing nothing more than sustaining without a promise. A solitary tear rolled down his cheek as he mourned the loss.

A life that had held such bright potential, only to be snuffed out by a two-timing perp who amounted to nothing more than a rodent on their battlefield. A pathetic rodent who hadn't even possessed a gun in his hands. A pathetic rodent who still had managed to deliver the ultimate blow.

A push down a flight of steps.

Billy shook his head sadly.

Perhaps it would have been easier for him, for all of them, to comprehend if it had been a gunshot wound or a bomb. Anything that would make sense in their line of work.

That is, if comprehension were even possible.

Ironically, the fall itself had not been that bad. A few bruises and bumps that would have amounted to nothing when compared to the daily agony of an agent in the field.

Instead, gravity or physics, whichever you prefer, had also chosen to participate in the play and the human head does not take kindly to striking hard concrete in such a manner.

Wiping quickly at the now rapidly falling tears that streamed from his eyes, he inhaled deeply and prepared to take his final nightly leave. They would return soon and he didn't want them to know. He wanted to allow them these moments without Agency intrusion.

It was the least that he could do and yet, not anywhere near close enough to what he longed to do.

 **SMK**

They had walked a little way more, finally reaching the playground.

As he'd anticipated, her first stop was the sliding board. He allowed her these moments, the thrill of sliding down to the bottom to be caught by his waiting hands.

If only he had stopped long enough to enjoy those moments, the simple times of play. All too soon they grew into adults and such times became nothing more than a wisp of a memory or opportunities lost. He wondered if she still had all those memories of sliding boards and summer picnics, lazy afternoons where nothing had been the goal beneath the blue sky and puffy white clouds.

Or, had they been replaced by all of the challenges that had arisen from the dust along the complicated journey of life?

Once upon a time, he had been given those opportunities and now he mourned the loss of not making the most of them. He hadn't realized then that sometimes the journey ends long before one thinks it should. He supposed he could be angry over that but his anger had faded a millennium ago, or so it seemed.

Now he had a chance, however brief, to revel in her childish joy and recapture a few moments of long-lost innocence.

The more things changed, the more they remained the same. Despite it all, he didn't believe that she'd lost all of her joy. He knew that life had handed her a combined platter of good and bad, happiness and tears and yet, she was still his little girl who somehow always managed to find the good and chase the bad away.

Like her mother, she was sweetness and beauty. Like him, she was inquisitive and thoughtful. Perhaps he was biased but he was certain that she had been given the best of both of her parents and that made her even more precious to him.

"Daddy?"

Her little voice broke into his thoughts and he forced himself to give her his undivided attention.

"Yes, princess?"

"Where's Mommy? You said she'd be here and she isn't."

Immediately he recognized the look she gave him. That direct, demanding answer-me-now look that she'd perfected very early on. It was the same look that had put him on the receiving end of lectures about not spoiling her from his wife time and time again.

He stole a glance at his watch.

"It isn't quite time, princess."

Her answer was to clap her tiny hands in delight.

"We can play more?"

"Anything you want princess."

"Good, cause I want to play and there's nobody else here, which is good, cause I can play all I want, right Daddy?"

"For as long as you want," he laughed.


End file.
